Scroll down to No. 26 in rushing yards, and there they are, tied with the Cincinnati Bengals.

Still not convinced? Scroll down to No. 27 in rushing attempts, and there they are again.

Need more proof?

Check out yards per carry on first down. Right there at the No. 28 position.

Yes, the Packers do have a running game.

Whether you blame it on the offensive line or the running backs, the bottom line is it wasn’t very good Sunday at San Francisco and looked entirely like the same ineffective attack coach Mike McCarthy has led each of the past three seasons.

This was supposed to be the year the Packers were going to be committed to running the ball.

“We have to be able to run,” guard Josh Sitton said. “I think the biggest thing is we have to give Coach confidence early in the game to be able to go back to the run. (We have to be) successful early in the game, first down.”

The reason McCarthy was perturbed with rookie Eddie Lacy — other than a fumble that led to a 49ers touchdown — is that he can’t afford mistakes that lead to poor first-down results. The Packers are running a high-speed no-huddle offense that loses its effectiveness when it goes three-and-out.

The idea of the no-huddle is to keep putting pressure on the opposing defense and wear it out with sustained drives. Even ones that don’t score have a purpose. Cumulatively, the drives put constant pressure on the defense.

The Packers saw how that worked Monday night when the Philadelphia Eagles ran an astonishing 53 plays in the first half with their up-tempo offense. The difference between them and the Packers was that they ran for 151 yards on 30 rushing plays before halftime.

“They did some really good things with the run game that we need to do,” quarterback Aaron Rodgers said. “We need to run the ball more effectively and take some of the pressure off the passing game.

“Teams are going to keep daring us to run the ball; we’ve got to show them we can do it consistently.”

The Packers’ opponent Sunday, Washington, just happens to be the team that got lit up by the Eagles. When running on first and 10, the Eagles averaged just a shade under 4 yards per carry, which is exactly what the Packers need to do with their up-tempo offense.

“We just have to keep doing what we’re doing,” Lacy said. “We have a great plan. We’re all on the same page. When you run the ball, sometimes it’ll work, sometimes it won’t. That’s just the way the game is.

“But just because it don’t work don’t mean you stop doing it or try to change things. You just stick to it.”

The Packers’ drive chart in the 34-28 loss to the 49ers looked like a volatile week on Wall Street, with terrific highs such as touchdown series of 80, 62, 69 and 76 yards, and alarming lows such as seven series of three plays or fewer.

After benching Lacy in the first half, McCarthy started him again in the second. The results were better. Lacy carried nine times for 37 yards (4.1 average) and during one fourth-quarter drive that gave the Packers the lead had runs of 6, 7, 5 and 6 yards before finishing it all off with a 2-yard touchdown run.

Two of Lacy’s runs came on first down and put the Packers in excellent down-and-distance situations. The plays that followed both times were Lacy runs, both of which resulted in first downs and seemed to make the 49ers linebackers honor the run.

The Packers want to get teams out of playing both safeties back to defend the pass down after down, as was the case all last year, and get those linebackers committing to the run.

“To get teams out of a heavy dose of that type of defense, we’re going to have to run the ball better,” offensive coordinator Tom Clements said this week. “I think we will. We didn’t start out running the ball well, but then in the second half we had our moments.”

Having early-down successes makes it more likely McCarthy will give Rodgers plays with a run-pass option, which lets the quarterback decide what to do based on what he sees from the defense.

When it’s second and long, it’s pretty likely to be a passing play that gets called from the sideline. On downs in which the Packers faced second and 7 or more against the 49ers, they threw nine times and ran just three.

McCarthy said Lacy has worked on correcting some of the mistakes he made Sunday — most of them related to little things such as picking up clues where his offensive linemen were going and better targeting his blocks on oncoming rushers — and expects him to be better.

“Eddie’s had a good couple days,” McCarthy said. “He’s getting more and more in tune with the offense. It’s the little things. Eddie’s no different than any other rookie that comes into an offense with a veteran quarterback that has the ability to do a lot of things at the line of scrimmage.

“I don’t care who you bring in here, all of our new guys who are first- and second-year players are really challenged at this time of year. I like what I see. He’s off to a good week.”

The Packers hope it leads to a better Sunday. It can’t get a lot worse.

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